Josetsu’s “Catching a Catfish with a Gourd”

An Iconic Painting. . .

It’s called Catching a Catfish with a Gourd (in Japanese it’s called the Hyonenzu / 瓢鮎図). It was painted c. 1413 (during the Muromachi Period, 1336-1573 – depending on who’s counting) by Zen Priest Josetsu (如拙) of Kyoto’s Taizo-in Temple. Its current home is the Kyoto National Museum of Art although it’s still considered temple property.

I was introduced to Catching a Catfish with a Gourd in September 1984, in a Japanese Art History class at Kansai Gaidai in Hirakata, Japan. I’m just one of 100s and 100s of thousands (probably millions) who over the past 600 years have fallen for this painting, and its sublime and profound lessons. Catching a Catfish with a Gourd offers what we today call a “teaching moment.”

It’s not only a beautiful painting, it’s humorous, mischievous, inspirational and offers-up a wince-making pun and perhaps even mildly scolds us when we tell ourselves something just can’t be done. It’s sort of a pictorial koan. Here’s a link to just the painting so you can study it and the question of how can one catch a catfish with a gourd.

. . . from an Emperor’s Riddle

The story behind Catching a Catfish with a Gourd begins with Emperor Ashikaga Yoshimochi’s enjoyment of koans and patronage of Kyoto’s monastic arts. It was the Emperor who commissioned Josetsu to paint the somewhat nonsensical riddle, “How does one catch a catfish with a gourd?” The result of that commission is Josetsu’s iconic work of art and spiritual punnery.

What’s more, Emperor Yoshimochi directed Josetsu’s fellow priests to weigh-in on the question, to bend their brains and imaginations to answer the question. And the result of that directive was 31 poems from 31 Zen Buddhist priests from Kyoto’s most acclaimed Zen temples, each poem taking a stab at answering the riddle. There’s no perfect answer. I have my favorite one, though. A hint: perspective can make the difference in virtually everything. Originally the painting, when presented to the Emperor, was mounted onto a small, Chinese-style standing screen, with the poems affixed to the screen’s reverse side. Soon thereafter the painting and complementary poems were remounted onto a single hanging scroll.

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The Hyonenzu in scroll form — 43 7/8 x 29 7/8 in (111.5 x 75.8 cm) — with the 31 “answer poems” mounted above. Note the red seal of each priest at the bottom of his poem:

Detail in black and white:

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Post Script: another hint to my favorite answer to the riddle is found in a Grateful Dead song, “Scarlet Begonias” . . .

Thanks so much. Am very happy you enjoyed it. This painting is one of the “biggies,” a really iconic work in the Japanese art history world, and certainly in the Zen painting world. But once you’ve studied a little Japanese art history (I have, but I don’t hold myself out to be a scholar or expert!) and have seen this particular work of Josetsu’s a thousand times, one can forget that outside of this particular area of study or art appreciation the work is virtually unknown! So that’s why I wanted to write a little bit about it — and other Japanese cultural icons here and there — on this blog.

You know, while I’ve never really asked around (I’ll make it a point to now), I’m willing to bet that most Japanese people, not just art historians and scholars of Zen, know this work, at least in passing. I may be mixing up memories but it seems I’ve seen “Catching a Catfish with a Gourd” in this or that ad from time to time (you know, for some brand of toothpaste or copying machines or some other consumer product).

Yes, please come back often and wade into the past couple years’ front page archives!

mountains stand behind
covered by mist
mountains have grown
as have my whiskers
and my clothes tear and wear out with time
and I am to catch
slippery catfish
with slippery gourd –
O god
of streams and mountains!
how do you catch, dear god of bamboo,
a catfish in a gourd?

and the waters flow
of many monsoons and storms
and the river has changed its course
many times
while I stand here with my gourd
and myself twisted and turned and all my virility lost
not a jot closer to my task
even with the god of riverbanks;
but all the while this catfish jumps around in the stream
mocking
clapping its fins like a pair of hands
and beating the water with its tail
and the message it sends is: “Come on! come on!
Catch me if you can!”

Right…
catfish in the waters slippery
gourd in my hand slippery
and I am to catch this catfish
O god of mist and rocks
how do you catch a catfish in a gourd?